I AM KOREAN AMERICAN

Occupation

acupuncturist and martial arts school owner

Own Words

i grew up among surfer chicks and dudes in a suburb of Los Angeles. i really thought i was white until i was probably about 8 (ok, maybe 6). i distinctly remember in the third grade, my 6ft blond teacher asking me where Korea was. i had to show her, and everyone else, on the globe. my ideal of beauty was of course, blond, blue eyed and skinny. as i grew up, there was a handful of korean kids at my high school. but i felt i couldn’t identify with them. they were mostly from koreatown and more involved with being Korean than i was. also i felt fat compared to them, most of them being very petite and under 100lbs.

of course, like any good asian girl, i did not rebel against my parents until i left for college. Out of their sight, i “discovered” myself, dabbling in just about everything in the land of Berkeley. For whatever reason, i always had the need to break any and all expectations of me. (maybe because i was the youngest of three, all going to the same schools, all the teachers knew who i was and the high academic expectations my sisters set for me. ) so what do i do at Berkeley? i major in Forestry, become a hippy, live in the mountains of the Sierra Nevada for a month and after graduating work by climbing 150foot pine trees.

After a year or so, i decide to move to Hawaii… i finally felt that it was beautiful to be asian. and not typical asian, there were all sorts. I travel for awhile and end up back in LA. I realize i can’t live in California, i felt too many unspoken requirements to live there. in southern cal, the pressure to fit the asian beauty, wearing black, eyelid surgery, being 90lbs, (y’all know what i mean!), and then in northern cal, you had to be Politically correct, drink strong coffee, ride your bike, microbrews… so i left.

ended up in florida and met my husband here, a korean from Korea. never dated an asian guy before him… i was too “weird and wild” according to an asian male friend once.

i love this blog, i feel like i was born about 10 years too early. i want my daughters to grow up feeling beautiful and strong and not having to choose to be either Korean or American (had that thrown in my face when i was planning the wedding) You can be half and half. take the good from each culture and make it your own.